SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVIDING A VIRTUALIZED REPLICATION AND HIGH AVAILABILITY ENVIRONMENT

• US 20130185716A1
• Filed: 01/13/2012
• Published: 07/18/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 01/13/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CA, Inc. (d/b/a CA Technologies) (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Computer Associates Think Inc. (Broadcom, Inc.)
• Inventors: Dun, Pengcheng, YIN, Jinxing
• Granted Patent: US 8,893,147 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/2069 Management of state, configuration or failover
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/1794 Details of file format conversion
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/188 Virtual file systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/27 Replication, distribution or synchronisation of data between databases or within a distributed database system; Distributed database system architectures therefor
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45562 Creating, deleting, cloning virtual machine instances
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/4557 Distribution of virtual machine instances; Migration and load balancing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1095 Replication or mirroring of data, e.g. scheduling or transport for data synchronisation between network nodes
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/131 Protocols for games, networked simulations or virtual reality

Abstract

The system and method described herein may provide a virtualized replication and high availability environment. In particular, a virtualized production server may run one or more virtual machines in one or more child partitions and have a replication and high availability engine installed in a parent partition. The replication and high availability engine may automatically discover the virtual machines running in the child partitions and automatically synchronize all files associated with the virtual machines to a virtualized replica server. Furthermore, the replication and high availability engine may continuously replicate subsequent changes to the files associated with the virtual machines running in the child partitions to the virtualized replica server, which may then create on-demand virtual machines from the synchronized and replicated files to handle switchover, failover, switchback, and failback events associated with the virtualized production server or the virtual machines running in the child partitions associated therewith.

Claims

1. A system for providing a virtualized replication and high availability environment, wherein the system comprises:

a production server having hardware to host a virtualization architecture, wherein the virtualization architecture includes a parent partition that contains a virtualization stack having access to the hardware associated with the production server and one or more child partitions configured to execute one or more virtual machines;

a replica server having hardware to host the virtualization architecture; and

a replication and high availability engine installed in the parent partition associated with the production server, wherein the replication and high availability engine is configured to;

synchronize virtual machine files associated with the one or more virtual machines executed in the one or more child partitions to the replica server; and

run one or more replication scenarios to replicate changes to the virtual machine files associated with the one or more virtual machines to the replica server.

2. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the replication and high availability engine is further configured to invoke a volume shadow copy service writer associated with the virtualization stack to capture the virtual machine files synchronized to the replica server.

3. The system recited in claim 2, wherein the virtual machine files associated with the one or more virtual machines include virtual hard disk files having a *.vhd file format, configuration files having a *.xml file format, and snapshot files having a *.avhd file format.

4. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the virtualization architecture further includes a hypervisor configured to isolate the parent partition from the one or more child partitions.

5. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the virtualization stack includes one or more components configured to manage inter-partition communication between the parent partition and the one or more child partitions.

6. The system recited in claim 1, wherein the virtualization architecture hosted on the replica server includes a parent partition configured to:

create one or more on-demand virtual machines from the synchronized virtual machine files associated with the one or more replication scenarios;

start the one or more on-demand virtual machines in one or more child partitions; and

redirect end users and workloads from the one or more virtual machines executed in the one or more child partitions on the production server to the one or more on-demand virtual machines started in the one or more child partitions on the replica server.

7. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the parent partition is configured to automatically redirect the end users and the workloads to the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server in response to a switchover event that relates to planned downtime associated with the production server or the virtual machines executed thereon.

8. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the parent partition is configured to automatically redirect the end users and the workloads to the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server in response to a failover event that relates to unplanned downtime associated with the production server or the virtual machines executed thereon.

9. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the parent partition is configured to automatically redirect the end users and the workloads to the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server to a balance a load associated with the production server.

10. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the parent partition is configured to redirect the end users and the workloads to the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server to test the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server without disrupting the one or more virtual machines executing on the production server.

11. The system recited in claim 6, wherein the replica server is further configured to run the one or more replication scenarios in reverse to synchronize virtual machine files associated with the one or more on-demand virtual machines or changes to the virtual machine files associated with the one or more on-demand virtual machines to the production server.

12. The system recited in claim 11, wherein the replication and high availability engine is further is configured to redirect the end users and the workloads from the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server to the one or more virtual machines in the one or more child partitions on the production server in response to the replica server having run the one or more replication scenarios in reverse to perform switchback or failback from the replica server to the production server.

13. A method for providing a virtualized replication and high availability environment, comprising:

hosting a virtualization architecture on a production server, wherein the virtualization architecture includes a parent partition that contains a virtualization stack having access to hardware associated with the production server and one or more child partitions configured to execute one or more virtual machines;

synchronizing, via a replication and high availability engine installed in the parent partition associated with the production server, virtual machine files associated with the one or more virtual machines executed in the one or more child partitions to a replica server; and

running, via the replication and high availability engine, one or more replication scenarios to replicate changes to the virtual machine files associated with the one or more virtual machines to the replica server.

14. The method recited in claim 13, further comprising invoking, via the replication and high availability engine, a volume shadow copy service writer associated with the virtualization stack to capture the virtual machine files synchronized to the replica server.

15. The method recited in claim 14, wherein the virtual machine files associated with the one or more virtual machines include virtual hard disk files having a *.vhd file format, configuration files having a *.xml file format, and snapshot files having a *.avhd file format.

16. The method recited in claim 13, wherein the virtualization architecture further includes a hypervisor configured to isolate the parent partition from the one or more child partitions.

17. The method recited in claim 13, wherein the virtualization stack includes one or more components configured to manage inter-partition communication between the parent partition and the one or more child partitions.

18. The method recited in claim 13, further comprising:

creating, via the virtualization architecture hosted in a parent partition on the replica server, one or more on-demand virtual machines from the synchronized virtual machine files associated with the one or more replication scenarios;

starting, via the virtualization architecture hosted in a parent partition on the replica server, the one or more on-demand virtual machines in one or more child partitions; and

redirecting end users and workloads from the one or more virtual machines executed in the one or more child partitions on the production server to the one or more on-demand virtual machines started in the one or more child partitions on the replica server.

19. The method recited in claim 18, wherein the replica server automatically redirects the end users and the workloads to the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server in response to a switchover event that relates to planned downtime associated with the production server or the virtual machines executed thereon.

20. The method recited in claim 18, wherein the replica server automatically redirects the end users and the workloads to the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server in response to a failover event that relates to unplanned downtime associated with the production server or the virtual machines executed thereon.

21. The method recited in claim 18, wherein the replica server automatically redirects the end users and the workloads to the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server to a balance a load associated with the production server.

22. The method recited in claim 18, wherein the replica server automatically redirects the end users and the workloads to the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server to test the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server without disrupting the one or more virtual machines executing on the production server.

23. The method recited in claim 18, further comprising running the one or more replication scenarios on the replica server in reverse to synchronize virtual machine files associated with the one or more on-demand virtual machines or changes to the virtual machine files associated with the one or more on-demand virtual machines to the production server.

24. The method recited in claim 23, further comprising redirecting the end users and the workloads from the one or more on-demand virtual machines on the replica server to the one or more virtual machines in the one or more child partitions on the production server in response to the replica server having run the one or more replication scenarios in reverse to perform switchback or failback from the replica server to the production server.